layla 'double betrayla' fairbourne (boundless) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-11-20 11:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | !! duel(s), !!! group: death eaters, !!! group: order of the phoenix, angelina johnson, bellatrix lestrange, dedalus diggle, ignatius travers, layla fairbourne |
WHO: Angelina Johnson, Dedalus Diggle, Layla Fairbourne, Ignatius Travers, and Bellatrix Lestrange.
WHAT: The Order investigates weird plants.
WHEN: 20 November, afternoon.
WHERE: Tinworth! A thriving community where nothing ever goes awry.
WARNINGS: Violence! Evil plants!
The rumble of cars nearly drowned out the almost seductive hum of the bush Angelina was currently stood in front of. She knew she probably should’ve waited for backup before taking on the suspicious thicket herself, but someone had already lost a hand to one of the plants and another had spored her during a morning run. She was, she thought, understandably irritated! She gave the humming bush a solid kick and an impatient, “Not today, Satan!” Unbeknownst to Angelina, though, a vine had snaked around her other ankle. It was only when she was flat on her back and being dragged towards a salivating succulent that she realized maybe she should’ve been paying attention to her feet. “Um,” she said, digging her other heel into the ground and scrabbling for the wand she’d dropped in her fall. “Help?” A glamoured but behatted figure popped onto the scene with a CRACK, not far from the thicket. Dedalus whisked around to find the source of the sound, his eyes growing wide when he spotted Angelina being nabbed by the plant. “Goodness!” he exclaimed, quickly sending a shrub-shrivelling hex at the vine. Unseen by him, another vine had already begun to wind its way toward his ankles as well. “Watch your feet!” Angelina cried as she yanked her foot away from the shrivelled remains of her own vine and scrambled for her wand. The humming bush was humming louder after being kicked and it was starting to make her feel both really strange and like setting it on fire. She pointed her wand at it and went with fire. Dedalus heeded her warning just in time to jump out of the way when the vine tried to grab him, too. He sent a small ball of fire at it, then staggered backward into another plant that promptly bit him on the hand he'd injured only the night before. He jabbed it with his wand with a frustrated, “One should eat one's vegetables, not the other way around!” And then what was this other one? Spores, really? “I've never been one for gardening,” Dedalus opined, coughing profusely into his coat sleeve before setting that bush on fire as well. “I liked Herbology in school,” Angelina muttered, following suit and throwing her own arm over her mouth. Her toes, strangely, started to burn and she looked down to find something had burned holes through her trainers. She brought her heel down on the cluster of leaves responsible with a disgruntled hmph and summoned one of the sporing plants. “Where did this stuff even come from?” The answer to Angelina’s question came but a few short moments later with another CRACK of Apparation heralding the beginning of the arrival of said culprits. Masked and robed, the initial Death Eater stepped forward with wand at the ready and directed at the interlopers. “Should have left it alone,” she informed with the aid of charms to disguise her voice. It was then that Layla Fairbourne’s eyes widened behind eye-slits coinciding with the recognition of one of her best friends. Layla’s best friend promptly tossed the sporing plant she’d summoned and caught back at her like it was the world’s worst quaffle, spores flying everywhere. It wasn’t exactly what the equally masked and robed Ignatius Travers was expecting as he arrived, immediately casting a shield charm against the spores so that he’d have a moment to survey the scene. “Interesting plant choice,” he remarked to no one in particular, as his gaze zeroed in on a target. “Interesting hat choice,” he said to the behatted man, before aiming an arrow spell at it. Dedalus ducked just in time, but his hat was not as lucky; several arrows pierced it and pinned it to a nearby tree. He frowned, more than a bit put out to have two hats destroyed in two days. “Interesting mask choice,” Dedalus countered, before sending another fireball at the masked man who’d just arrived. With a crack of magic announcing her arrival, Bellatrix stepped onto the scene and immediately cast a shield to deflect the vigilante’s attack. She glanced at her fellow Death Eaters. “Only two this time,” she mused out loud. Spared the full frontal plant assault by her colleague’s timely arrival, Layla snapped her wrist, and wand with it. “Aduram Virga!” The fiery whip materialized mid-air and mid-lash barely to the left of her friend. It was an attempt to split her off like a lion — or Gryffindor — tamer. “This one’s mine.” Angelina couldn’t do anything but dart off to the right. “Aduram virga!” Bellatrix shouted, jabbing her wand at the nearest vigilante as Layla kept the other occupied. A bright tendril of flame snaked out of the end of her wand, whipping its way toward their opponent. As it did, the nearest plants’ vines crept across the ground toward them and Bellatrix took a wary step away, beating them back with a few hasty severing charms. She didn’t need any part of their own trap distracting her from the task at hand. “I’m not sure I care for the plants,” Ignatius said dryly, his voice laced with displeasure that had everything to do with the fact that he’d only managed to skewer the man’s hat and little to do with the plants themselves. Still, between Bellatrix and himself, he had no real doubts that they’d be successful and it was with a smugness that he aimed a series of slicing curses at their opponent. Dedalus threw up a shield too late; it was bad enough to be caught between one Death Eater and some monstrous vegetation—but two? He caught the end of the whip and a few of the slicing curses before he managed a hasty Protego. He let out an uncharacteristically terse, “Shit!” as he tripped over one of the creeping vines and stumbled backwards. Then, he conjured a flapping, screeching cloud of bats, hoping to distract them long enough to get out of the way. The bats seemed to fly straight toward her and Bellatrix recoiled with a grimace, taking a step back perilously just out reach of the plant’s tentacles. A few bright flashes from the end of her wand scattered the vigilante’s latest attack. “I’m not sure I care for those,” she said, shooting Ignatius a glance before she realized their enemy was getting away. “There!” She shouted, pointing her finger in Dedalus’ direction. “They’re heading for the houses!” The bats had been an effective distraction, but it didn’t take too long for Ignatius to refocus his attention. “Then we ought to slow them down,” he said, before aiming a blasting curse at the ground ahead of the retreating figure. The explosion caused a deep rift in the terrain that he hoped their opponent would have the decency to fall into. Dedalus shrieked as the chasm appeared in front of him. He tried to jump over it, but misjudged the distance and tripped on the edge of it, falling and twisting his ankle. He scrambled to his feet and continued to limp painfully toward the houses, sending a purple fireball back over his shoulder in their general direction before ducking behind the wall of the brick building. “That nearly did it,” Bellatrix muttered when she saw the vigilante get back to his feet. And when she saw the purple flames, her eyes narrowed further. She was about to cast a shield, another curse, and suggest they pursue him, but their own plants had other ideas. One one of the plants chose that instant to lash out, wrapping tightly around her ankle. Bellatrix let out a sharp sound of surprise and set to work dismembering this new offender. The fireball landed just to Ignatius’s left, flying close enough to set the sleeve of his robe on fire on its way to setting the ground ablaze. Purple flames sprung up around them as he hissed in anger, and he aimed his wand first to extinguish the ones on his arm (though not before some significant burns, he was sure) before moving to the rest. It wasn’t that he particularly cared about this part of the world burning, but it was getting in his way. Dedalus, meanwhile, was leaning up against the house, heart pounding hard in his chest as he tried to think quickly as to how he could turn this situation to his advantage. It was not—as far as he was concerned—hopeless just yet. Perhaps if he could ambush them, drawing them further away from Angelina and her assailant… Wand at the ready, he quickly peered around the corner, trying to see how close they were. Then, he used a ventriloquism charm to throw his voice just beyond the next house over, hoping to trick them, “Why, that was a cake-walk!” Bellatrix ignored the sting of the plant’s poison against her skin as she kicked the last of it away from her. She took stock of Ignatius enough to determine that he was well enough to continue, and without another word, she took off in the direction she’d last seen the vigilante running. She stopped short, though, when she heard a voice coming from the next house over. Brow furrowed behind her mask, she tightened her grip on her wand and walked slowly toward it, ready to strike at anything that moved. Ignatius followed soon behind, unsure himself exactly which direction the previously behatted man had gone. He’d lost track in the fire. Pausing, he listened carefully for any sign of their enemy. With their backs turned to him, Dedalus was perfectly positioned. He raised his wand, ready to strike— “Hurry up! Hur—” his pocketwatch began to shout cheerily as it struck the hour. He quickly reached to shut it off, but the damage had already been done. Bellatrix whirled around at the sound — she was sure she’d heard it before, somewhere, but the effects of the poison were already making it difficult enough to focus without her wracking her brain in the moment. So she sent a blasting curse ahead of herself. “You’re finished, phoenix!” Dedalus quickly summoned an unfortunate cement garden gnome to take the brunt of the blast, but was unable to shield himself from bits of gnome. Yelping, he aimed his wand at their feet, intending to scoop out the ground from underneath them, but botched the incantation, turning it into lime gelatin instead. The spores he’d ingested earlier were beginning to make his head spin. Not expecting the ground beneath his feet to turn a particular shade of green and lose its solidness, Ignatius found himself suddenly sinking into the gelatin. Its jiggle caused him to lose his balance, falling unceremoniously onto the ground behind him with his already injured arm breaking his fall. “You can’t win with dessert!” he said before aiming a fireball vaguely in the vigilante’s direction. “Or can I?” Dedalus scoffed, deciding to pretend he’d meant to do that. His attempt at gloating was cut short, however, by his suddenly throwing up plant spores and consequently being set on fire. He shrieked and haphazardly cast a storm cloud above their heads, complete with thunder and lightning, as he tried to drench the considerable amount of flames consuming his person. Knee-deep in gelatin, Bellatrix glared between the storm cloud and their injured opponent. Breathing deeply, she turned to Ignatius. “Let’s fry this traitor,” she said, tilting her head up to indicate the rumbling storm above them. When the next bolt of lightning flashed, she lifted her wand to meet it. The electricity funneled into her wand, charging the air around them. And just as the shapes in her vision began to blur, she threw the full force of her wand behind a lightning spell that splintered through the air in Dedalus’ direction. Behind her, Ignatius aimed his own lightning spell, hoping to further amplify the effects. Dedalus knew he was outmatched. He was already feeling faint when he reached for his portkey, though not quickly enough. The combined lightning hit him with a mighty crack. It was only through pure luck that his hand still tightened its grip around the key, and just as he lost consciousness, he disappeared with a sad little pop. When the smoke from their spells dissipated to reveal the vigilante’s absence, Bellatrix glanced at Ignatius with a vaguely delirious smirk. “That was brilliant,” she said, out of breath. Ignatius blinked a few times as he stared at the space previously occupied by their target. It was a pity he’d gotten away but then again, he doubted the man would be alive for very much longer. “We’ll have to remember the lightning and use it again sometime,” he said as he tried to brush some gelatin off his robes. “But I’d prefer a few less plants. Shall we go?” “Far fewer plants. Far less poison,” she agreed with a nod, despite barely having heard him. And with a glance up at the cloud still pelting rain down on them, she held her free hand up to catch a few drops before adding, “And much less of all this nonsense.” “Yes, next time let’s keep the poisoning to our enemies.” Reaching out, Ignatius took Bellatrix’s arm and apparated the two of them away. “I’m not yours,” Angelina snapped, her shoulder ramming into a tree so she could avoid being Darth Vadered by the Death Eater’s fire whip. She didn’t know Layla was trying to avoid hitting her. She didn’t know it was Layla at all and that was probably for the best. She was already mad enough as it was that the Death Eaters had done this to her town. All she could think about was her and Layla shooting arrows at Rodolphus Lestrange’s face. So she pointed her wand and sent a volley of arrows at the Death Eater. Ignoring her friend’s outburst given all Layla was trying to do was spare her friend from tangling and being slaughtered by Lestrange and Travers like the top hat man was about, she snapped her wand around again. The whip, following her movements, coiled through the air and then licked a foot over Angelina’s head, burrowing and burning into the trunk of the offending tree. Another near miss for the vigilante done on purpose. “Get lost, A—” Layla hissed right back, but that was when her brain caught up with Angelina’s familiar movements and she twirled to the side. Of course this was what her friend would resort to, and she ought to have predicted it. Arrows peppered where she’d just been been streaking through the air and tearing through her cloak. A shooting pain in her thigh blurred her vision and tore that thought from her mind. The whip fizzled without ceremony. Merlin. Layla didn’t need to look down to know there was an arrow sticking out of her thigh and that her only option was to hope that it hadn’t cut into any arteries. And she saw red, but still not enough to try to kill someone she cared for. “Johnson,” she spat through the pain, and then hurled a banishing charm right back. Hearing her name on a Death Eater’s tongue sent something icy and cold down Angelina’s spine and she resisted giving them the satisfaction of seeing her shudder. A quick shield caught the brunt of the banishing charm, but she still skidded back a foot or so on her heels. “No, you get lost,” she maturely shot back. “Tinworth took a poll and we decided we’re done with you assholes fucking with us.” To drive her point home, Angelina’s wand found the groundcover that’d eaten through the toes of her trainers and set a blanket of it to wrap around the Death Eater. And then, to literally drive her point home, sent a banishing charm of her own at the end of the arrow in their thigh. Small miracles that her injury may have impaired her movement around the battlefield, but not robbed her of the ability to cast spells. Even as the evil turf began to tight and curl around her, already nibbling at her cloak, Layla’s slashing charm severed it in two. The severed pieces fell to the sides of her uselessly. And then the Death Eater gave an unbridled shriek of pain as the arrow in her thigh strained, digging deeper into her flesh, and finally the feathered tail snapped off altogether under the pressure. Nerves flared and muscles spasmed, and despite that Layla could swear she felt the blood trickling down her leg. Her face contorted with with a mixture of anger and agony beneath her mask because Angelina didn’t stop. In that moment Layla pulled up with her wand in a yanking motion. Her friend simply wasn’t going to leave as directed without more motivation. From behind Angelina, another previously undisturbed bush Layla had planted ripped up from it’s roots, summoned by the Death Eater and on a collision course with the vigilante with grasping vines flailing. There was a split second of silence and confusion when nothing seemed to happen and then, from behind her, Angelina heard a sound like countless swords being unsheathed all at once as glinting thorns sprang from the bush. Before she could turn to investigate, the vines looped around her middle and yanked her back into the bush, sending both her and the plant crashing to the ground. Angelina sucked in a pained, surprised breath as the bush’s thorns dug into her back and she knew she should leave. She was there as herself, not an anonymous vigilante, and she was going to paint an even bigger target on her back. But she hated losing. And she hated Death Eaters just as much. More, even. With a hiss, she drew her elbow back and pushed at the bush with it, while her other hand, pinned as it was beneath her body and the bush, sent another volley of arrows at the Death Eater. “Fuck off,” she half-gasped. The second spattering of arrows may have been more obvious this time, but Layla was still injured, and worse she couldn’t move as she did last time. The shield sprung forth and arrows bounced off but there was still another flash of pain from her opposite shoulder and she sucked in a breath. It hadn’t been a solid hit, but the arrow had still cut through her robes and into her flesh nonetheless. “No, you fuck off!” Layla screamed in reply, equally as mature as her counterpart. If it had been anyone else nestled in those vines right now she’d have been done so much worse. Except it was a severing hex that tore from her wand, inched slightly off target, and seemed at odds with her rage and affiliation. The Death Eater staggered forward then, practically dragging her one injured leg behind her along the sidewalk, and snarled, her voice ragged and strained. Her wand was trained on the other witch, but her mind was still wishing that she wouldn’t have to cast another spell. The vines fell away from Angelina with a tinny, slight cry of what she could only assume was vegetal pain. There was a new slice across her shoulder, but the severing charm mostly caught the vines and the thorny bush. Gritting her teeth as thorn after thorn ripped free from her back, she finally elbowed the bush away off her and scrambled away from the vines’ death throes, hauling herself away on her hands and feet. Her hand bumped into a toadstool, which hunkered down before popping up with a candy pink cloud of something that made her fling her other arm over her face. It reminded Angelina why she was there, at least. Climbing to her feet, she aimed fireballs at the nearby plants, starting with the noxious toadstool and keeping the Death Eater with the crap aim firmly in her line of sight. The toadstool’s fiery, anguished, death knell came met with a larger, thicker cloud of pink spores, but it only took a moment before a gust of magical wind swept up, courtesy of the Death Eater’s wand, and blew the cloud of spores off in the direction of a muggle household. Layla’s breath was hoarse and ragged as she stood there watching Angelina Johnson lighting her precious plants on fire. Feeling humiliated alongside her heavy dose of pain, Layla couldn’t help herself and shot a conjunctivitis curse, chosen because the damage wouldn’t be permanent or extreme, at her friend. But the plants were why they were here, and now they were burning out. “Now kindly fuck off before you die.” Angelina was so focused on casting a shield charm around the muggle house that there was no time for a shield charm on herself. It was suddenly hard to see with weepy, swollen eyes, but years of Quidditch in the rain had given her a decent enough sense of herself with poor visibility. She could make out the Death Eater’s shadowy shape through her tears. Though most of the plants near them had caught fire, stubbornness almost had Angelina standing her ground. It still didn’t feel like enough of a win. She sucked in a deep breath, regretting it the second she did because the air was heavy with smoke and then clamping her mouth shut against a cough. “Whatever,” Angelina choked out. Lifting her chin stubbornly, she aimed a quick tripping jinx where she thought the Death Eater’s feet were and then disapparated. Layla grumbled unhappily as the thick smoke filled the air around where she was standing. Now that Angelina had finally departed her adrenaline dipped and the pain was suddenly much more real. “You stupid noble stupid idiot—” she muttered, bringing a hand to cover her mouth from the smoke and spores. She winced painfully as she took an agonizing step away from the spreading flames. And fell flat on her face from the tripping jinx she didn’t even see Angelina cast. It was after another string of curses that Layla got her bearings and apparated out. |